October 3, 2006

I was charmed to see two hummingbirds buzzing around a potted flowering plant by the entrance to the law school this morning. But unlike nearly everything else in the world, these things are quite resistant to the usual snapshot. There's a whole special science to photographing these hyperactive yet oddly stationary things.

ken: you're simply incorrect about this. My Olympus E-100RS digicam (released around 2001) supports shutter speeds as high as 1/10,000 seconds. Granted, it isn't your typical digicam, but there is nothing about shutters which precludes high speed digital. (This is clearly a camera designed with sports in mind, it has a gyro stabilized 28-280mm equivalent zoom lens and can also take photos up to 15 fps, though at its full (not very high) resolution, the burst length is very limited).

I've taken photos of turboprop airplanes in which have the propellers have very little blur.